Parallel Processing

This is one of 64 processing elements with memory built for the ILLIAC IV parallel computer. The only ILLIAC IV made was moved to the Navy's Moffett Field in California in 1971 to avoid Vietnam War turmoil on university campuses.

Parallel Processing

It’s easy to keep improving computer performance when processors get faster.
But how do you keep making gains when the rate of processor improvement slows? By adding more processors.

“Parallel” architectures harness hundreds or thousands of processors working together. Writing software to coordinate them all is challenging. But by 2000, parallel processors started to excel, making less expensive supercomputers possible.

ILLIAC IV wasn't very reliable, but did prove that "single instruction, multiple data" designs worked. It was particularly good for problems in computational fluid dynamics, enabling it to simulate aircraft designs that would otherwise have been analyzed in wind tunnels.